Another view: Farm bills mock cost cutting

In one of the versions of the farm bill, taxpayers would pay for 80 percent of cotton farmers' insurance premiums.

For many years, rural and urban lawmakers in Washington formed an unusual alliance. Urban representatives supported farm subsidies in exchange for rural support of food stamps. Predictably, this backscratching arrangement resulted in both programs becoming bloated.

This month, in a break with tradition, the House passed its version of a farm bill without including any money for food stamps (now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), ostensibly to rein in waste.

But that's not what's happening. The House bill retains lavish subsidies for an agriculture sector that is doing much better than many other parts of the economy - so lavish that they make a mockery of House Republicans' attempts at cost cutting.

The measure would cost roughly $200 billion over the next decade.

That's nearly 10 times the much-maligned bank bailout, which is now expected to cost $21 billion, thanks to much of the original $700 billion having been paid back or never spent in the first place.

The Senate's version of the farm bill, largely a Democratic product, isn't quite as bad, but it also spends too much, rewards inefficiency and creates monopolies and cartels, all in an effort to transfer wealth from taxpayers to farmers.

Among the objectionable provisions in one or both measures:

? Sugar. North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un could not devise a program less divorced from free enterprise. Each year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announces how much sugar farmers will produce. Imports are limited. USDA buys any excess production and sells it at a loss to ethanol producers. The program, which forces consumers to overpay, is continued in both bills.

? Crop insurance. Crop insurance, which is being billed as a "reform" in both chambers because it would replace direct subsides to farmers, differs from what most people think of as insurance. Taxpayers would pay 65 percent of a farmer's premium and the majority of payouts.

? Cotton. Cotton farmers fought for, and won, provisions that would have taxpayers pay 80 percent of their insurance premiums. They also got a special two-year extension of a program that pays landowners whether they farm or not.

? Target prices. With crop prices high thanks to global demand and ethanol subsidies, farmers generally have been doing well. But for this very reason, they have not been able to avail themselves of price supports. So House Republicans increased the target prices for a host of crops to make sure that taxpayer subsidies could boost already robust revenues.

? Permanence. Because farm bills are so expensive, controversial and subject to the law of unintended consequences, they have been passed in five-year increments. This year's House bill would make its greatly enhanced subsidies permanent. But programs to conserve soil and deal with farm pollution would expire in five years and see their budgets cut.

This year's farm bills are nothing short of outrageous. At a time of huge deficits, underfunded infrastructure and ham-handed across-the-board spending cuts, they would hand out cash to thriving businesses that work the halls of Congress like a field of rich, alluvial soil.